The Hill News

What program has cost American consumers $1.7 billion in higher food prices, has cost the U.S. economy 76 cents for each of those dollars, has lost jobs in the food processing sector, and discriminated against the world’s poorest farmers? You would be correct if you had answered: current U.S. sugar policy.

Sugar is sweet and the federal sugar program is sweeter, at least for sugar beet and sugar cane producers. But U.S. sugar policy is a bitter pill to swallow for American consumers and food processing industry workers. Consumers pay for it through higher food prices; the food processing sector through lost jobs because of reduced competitiveness in the global market place. In addition, the program is genuinely painful for the world’s poorest farmers, who get substantially lower prices for their sugar and are pushed deeper into poverty.

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